binary sunset
by rose-tinted-bones
Summary: "Take what you can. Give nothing back." Words he lived by, punctuated by the shine of a million stars across a blanket of blue-black. A smile – curved at the edges, mirth dancing on the lips – and the gleam of too kind, too honest brown eyes. A snuffed-out fire in the wake of a tumultuous storm. Keith knows, intimately, what it means to hold on to what little he has left.


**binary sunset**

* * *

Summary:

 _Take what you can. Give nothing back._ Words he lived by, punctuated by the shine of a million stars across a blanket of blue-black. A smile – curved at the edges, mirth dancing on the lips – and the gleam of too kind, too honest brown eyes. A snuffed-out fire in the wake of a tumultuous storm. Keith knows, intimately, what it means to hold on to what little he has left.

Orphan. Failure. Abandoned. One-time synonyms and chapter-titles of his entire life. He can only fool himself for so long.

Regret is a blown-out, dying star – one of the last – that still light his way.

* * *

The water lapping at his feet is the first thing he notices. Sure, the sand in his face is coarse and fucking gritty. Sure, the pain that bludgeoned him the moment he opened bleary eyes, attacking every tendon of his body and promising to leave him blinded was a bit too strong to _not_ notice. Sure, the distinct red – blood, crimson – of his Lion cut through the haze of white-washed-grey and stuttering black, searing itself into his brain like a permanent scar, just one more on a field of many.

His eyelids sink over and over, and again and again he forces them back open even though his head throbs like a bitch. He's not stupid—hemorrhaging and concussion and the sand? There is definitely no way he is going to sleep; no way until he knows he's somewhere he can wake back up again. The tiny white crystals strewn among the grit swim in and out of focus as he lies as still as he can manage and tries to take stock.

Still, it's the warm – almost comforting – rush of the sea waves that he focuses on.

For a moment, that's all he thinks about – the ebb and flow, seeping into his boots, rushing away from shore yet to rushing back in a flat of a second. There's something calming about it – the cycling back and forth, easy and routine – and it's a calm that he's unfamiliar, like every nuance of patience and calmness. Calm isn't easy for him, as the mind-numbing ache across his body battles with the panic and the anxiety bubbling underneath the surface. Calm is reserved for the level-headed, those that could sit tight and make the hard choices where emotions fire across the battlefield like explosive shrapnel, for those that can look death in the eye and weigh the odds. Calm is for the moments in deep space, in the cold-almost-too-cold limbo as constellations and star sectors rush past them.

Keith isn't built for calm, never has been. People have told him that, all throughout his life. It's not like nobody has ever tried to cut through and hit bottom. It's not like he hasn't tried.

But it's not like he can't appreciate it, or not want it. The grey sky and the rushing in his ears was as pleasing as the gasped-out breaths that start to slow down to something normal.

His breathing sounds all wet and ragged even to his own ears. The pain's too ambient and too damn huge to categorize—he can't tell if he managed to puncture a lung or maybe his entire skull. That'd be shitty. Will be shitty. _Gotta think future tense. Gotta think, for starters._

He tries to sift back through the rubble in his shaken-to-shit little brain—it takes a second, and then concrete images of events start surfacing from the mire of memories, and he remembers…

In the wake of the ebbing pain, the memories rush back as he tilts his head to the side, his cheek pressed against the sand – feels it grate across his skin. It was so… _simple._ No warning, no alarms – nothing. An escort mission through deep space and the serenity of the distant stars as the Lions swam through fluctuating gravity. Then – like coming out of hyperspace, a fleet of Galra forces attacked the convoy they were guarding. Only a second's notice – an innate unease that was both his own and his Lion's – before the horizon was set aflame with purple.

He's starting to be able to make out individual grains of sand in front of his face. There's one particularly stubborn little shit stuck on one of his eyelashes—glued to it with dried blood, probably; dying is a nasty-ass business and no mistake.

It was not a battle to win, he knew. Even with Voltron's power, facing a horde of battleships with enough firepower to decimate a solar system in minutes, it was just simply survival that they aimed for. When all you can do is avoid the barrage of laser beams by the skin of your teeth, fighting back was the last thing on anyone else's mind.

The ship they were protecting – the Deucalion, their contractors called it – had a hyper-drive engine powerful enough to cut through massive distances. All they had to do was to cover it from fire long enough to allow it to run, board the ship and _go._

It was a contingency plan – made by Shiro, because Shiro's like that. He's the calm in the moment of battle, he's a channel of serenity that Keith can never replicate. He sees the bigger picture where only Keith knows the action-reaction of every moment, the immediate repulse at the end of the gunshot.

They hadn't planned ahead for bombing runs. The ship was unique – hyperdrives were a thing of science fiction, as far as Keith knew. Any political force in the universe powerful enough would want something intact to use for their own purposes. When the Galra battleships turned their ion cannons on them, Keith knew that the only way for them to survive this was to go _now._ The particle barriers of the Deucalion was enough to keep most of the barrage from damaging anything integral, while Lance and Hunk made for the ion cannons. Shiro and Keith circled about the ship, trying to wave off the smaller fighters while Pidge settled Green inside the Deucalion, assisting the crew in powering the generator.

The crinkling of nearby leaves has Keith raising his head to the side, blinking and hoping the sand won't get into his eyes. There's a line of trees not too far from him, and just a really long line of sand to the horizon. He grits his teeth, cursing to himself, as the pain doubled up like lightning up his arm.

All it took was for one ship to point its cannon at Shiro. Just one. The engine was ready to fire. Lance and Hunk managed to get back. Shiro and Keith were the only ones left out, the only ones still in the crossfire.

Just one massive beam of light rushing towards the Black Lion that was just a blink away from crossing through the barrier, and Keith's insides had upturned out of him as fear and terror fueled him and the Red Lion's descent to cover Shiro's flank.

The impact was jarring – blinding, crushing – as the beam cut through the Red Lion's hind leg, and her roar of pain reverberated inside Keith, as if his own leg was cut off. He dimly remembers, in the black-and-white flashing, Shiro turning about, as if to reach for him beyond the shield. There was a whirl of energy, a flash of white, before the Deucalion rushed forward and disappeared into space, Shiro calling for him before cutting out.

"S-Shit," Keith gasped, panting as the pain throbbed in his leg. So far, there were no open injuries – no blood, surprisingly – but he wasn't sure if he managed to escape totally unscathed. Blunt trauma could be just as damaging, if all the safety lessons he remembered from the Garrison could account for anything.

He surveyed the scene before him, the endless expanse of sea and sky and shore and to the Red Lion off the side. She was flat on the ground, her legs askew – and he could feel his chin tremble as his eyes locked on the left hind leg, the one that took the ion cannon's beam, and what remained of it.

The entire lower leg had been obliterated, a trail of smoke still rising from the blackened metal of her knee. The red coating was scratched out in some parts, the result of laser fire and, what he could see from his spot, it seemed the tail had also been shot, only a black cord listless on the sand.

It was a pitiful sight, and Keith pulled at his chest as the ache intensified.

He hadn't really believed it – before – when Lance talked about the connection between the pilot, the _paladin_ , and the Lion. Keith didn't believe in a lot of things, took to heart what only his eyes could see but that one second – floating in space, past the open hatch – when the Red Lion awoke and deemed him worthy, it was as if there had been another heartbeat right after his, another voice inside him, echoing, seeping into his veins and suffusing a warmth that he not only felt in his skin, but past it. Inside him. A shadow latched onto his own soul, another being melding with his own.

He can't feel anything now, and when he reaches out for the Lion and her fire, all he could feel was a gaping maw off a cliff's edge.

"No. No. _No._ " He chanted dimly, not even totally aware of his own actions as he tries to stagger forward, hands on the sand and the pain running from leg to back to head. The sand is harsh under his hands, and he fucking hates how each movement, each breath has him biting his own lip hard enough to bleed, just to keep him upright – as upright as he can on his knees – in the waves of wracking sharp-point pain that followed after.

It takes him minutes to cross the distance, takes him several hundreds of breaths and probably a million repetitions of 'shit' before he could even gather enough willpower to crawl forward. He can't trust himself on his legs right now – he's not even sure if he can limp, much less walk at this point. There's still a ringing to his ears and the relentless throb of pain that seemed to come from everywhere. Even the sound of the rushing waves and the rustling leaves deafened into an almost silent echo, like a call from a great distance, as his skin runs cold and he feels his arms trembling to keep himself up.

He could do this, Keith thinks. He could. It's just a few meters. Nothing too hard. Shiro could dance circles around this with his eyes closed and his legs tied.

"Damn it. God _damn_ it." He allows his head to bow for a moment, the hair sticking to his face, mixed with the sand, and he just breathes. Just breathes and allows himself to feel weak. The scent of the sea – that tang of salt that he could almost taste, or maybe he actually is tasting it – keeps him awake, is far too familiar for him to actually notice. It smells like the seas on Earth, Keith notes. He feels a laugh bubble up in his chest, even as it makes it hard to breathe. It smells like fucking Earth.

Of all the planets he could crash into – of all the planets his Lion could rush towards to in her escape from the Galra battleships – it had to be the planet that reminded him so much of Earth. Irony was as bitter as the taste of sand on his tongue.

"You are the worst," he says to the fallen Lion, her dimmed-out eyes turned to him. There's no response, just the echo of his words in his ears and the whistle of the wind across the sea. "The absolute worst."

He tries again, crawling – staggering – inching each step forward, slowing down and pausing but never stopping. He can't. Not when she's too close. Not when she needed him.

Even if Keith never felt like he could fix anything.

Even if Keith felt like everything he touches started to crumble.

When he's close enough – close enough to reach up with a hand and grip the metal of her front paw, enough to hold on to that as his other arm trembles painfully to keep him up, enough for him to grip the paw tight as he destroys another thing dear to him – Keith allows himself to fall headfirst into the sand, and maybe he could blame the sea for the sting in his eyes.

* * *

The first time Keith met Shiro – face to face and not through the throngs of cadets in the Garrison, or trailing behind the rapidly-whispered gossip circulating inside the four walls of a military base or several seats across a classroom – was on the roof deck.

Keith's never been good with dealing with people. Far too many emotions out in the open, too many expectations, too many words. Honestly, just too much _too_. He's never been good with exaggerations and the overblown. Silence, solitude – these were things he's used to, things he's craved for so long. Words carried only what they were meant to carry, no subtleties and insinuations. No tell-tale lies in eyes that spoke differently from the things their lips were spouting.

He's fine with spending time by himself. He's fine with getting by, _by_ himself. He's used to it. He has been, for so long. No expectations from others, nobody relying on him only for Keith to disappoint them time and time again. Nobody for Keith to try and pretend, to want to be better than he actually is because, honestly, it's not hard – to be better than Keith.

Up on the deck, where his eyes can take in as far as they can see, where he can the stars as many as he could, where the only companion was the sound of his breathing – it was enough. The calmness, sifting through the dunes and wrapping him in a quiet bubble, was enough.

It's never occurred to him – how he spent more time on deck than in his own room, with a sleeping roommate quietly snoring. It's never occurred to him – not until he heard a quiet greeting and turns his head to meet soft brown eyes.

Everyone knows Shiro – star cadet, top pilot, the Garrison's poster student and golden boy. With an unbeatable track record on flight simulations, optimal leadership skills and an all-around nice demeanor, Keith can see why. Shiro – with his wide smile and honest eyes – was someone people wanted to be around, the kind of person you want to confide in. Shiro – with his muscled physique courtesy of consistent training and his upbeat personality – was the kind of person that people looked up to, to be with. Shiro was brightly lit, dazzling.

And Keith – he was the shadow in the light. It was impossible to know Shiro and not be jealous, even for a second. To see the man in the mess hall and see how cadets and even fellow officers flocked to him, like moths to a golden flame, as Keith skirted by the tables and settled himself in the corner where a few eyes only ventured to look.

It was impossible not to want that – that ease, that surety, the way Shiro carries himself, purposeful but never arrogant. Whenever he feels that ugly head rear its gaze at him, Keith bows his head and keeps his eyes down. There are things that you can never have, no matter how much you want them. He's as familiar with the pain of disappointment as he is with the veins running down his arm.

"What?" He had asked – more or less grunted, as he took note of the man standing by the door. He doesn't know what time it was, probably sometime past midnight if he could find it in himself to care.

Keith expects Shiro to frown and dole out a reprimand. He wouldn't be surprised, cadets weren't supposed to be on the roof deck at night. In fact, cadets were prohibited from accessing the roof decks. Shiro was an officer, a good one at that from what he's gathered.

Keith sighed, standing up from his seat and waited for the words – cleaning duty, guard duty, whatever they can come up for him to do, whatever.

He doesn't expect Shiro to uncross his arms and smile at him – small, curved at the edges, a line of amusement and the glitter of his eyes.

"You don't mind if I stay out here with you?" Shiro's voice is deep and low, but not unkind. He turns to point with his chin to the side, where there's the metal compact of the air exhaust.

Keith is taken aback, but he ducks his head and turns it to the side to hide the surprise. "You're not going to report me?"

There was a slight chuckle and, weirdly, it loosened the tension in Keith's shoulders a bit. Just a bit. "Well, that would mean admitting that I also broke the rules and was somewhere I shouldn't be."

It's both a lie and the truth, Keith thinks, and he wonders hard on what the other meant. Technically, officers were not allowed on the roof deck either but their rank gave them leeway, especially when it meant reporting standoffish cadets up way past their bedtime.

"Fine," he had said as he turned his back on Shiro and sat back down. He expected the man to keep on talking, the way he always did in the mess hall. Always with a friend or a group, by the side of an instructor or in the middle of the hall with the commander. Keith barely makes out a hundred words at the end of a week, and even _that_ is an accomplishment in itself.

Shiro doesn't, though. Which surprises the hell out of Keith because his instincts has never failed him, his intuition has never been wrong about people. He watches Shiro at the corner of his vision, settling himself on top of the metal compact, long legs crossed at the ankle and resting his weight on the hands stretched out behind him.

He'd like to say that Shiro's presence was a distraction, that it grated at him and ruffled his hackles. When the almost silent snores of your roommate was enough to piss you off, Keith knew that he was never really good with people. The funny thing is that, he's wrong again.

Because staring up at the sky – at the myriad of stars, bright-white pinpoints of light, endless and riveting – he barely noticed his eyelids drooping and falling asleep.

* * *

He could only sit still and stare sluggishly at the waves for so long before the restlessness started. Oh, if he could, Keith would only be too happy to close his eyes and go to sleep forever, but life's never been easy to him – and if anything, Keith was stubborn as hell. _Survivor_ , that was the word Shiro used to describe him. Keith's never thought of himself in that kind of sense, had scoffed at the notion behind the slightly strained smile Shiro had gave him but the thought – the word – is ringing in his head.

And, if he lets himself believe, Shiro has never been wrong before. So, that must mean – in some small way – that Keith was what Shiro called a survivor. Bullshit, his brain supplied. Not true. But—

He'll never know if he doesn't try, right? Isn't that how the Sunday school proverb went? Or was it 'try and try until you die'? Maybe it's not just about succeeding, or making it. Maybe it's not the crawling past the sand, swimming across the waves and meeting the world's edge that carried the line throughout time. Maybe it's not just running until your legs break and bleed, until they're turned into stumps and you're straggling with the weight of an entire world on your shoulders trying to make it uphill and past the finish line.

Maybe it's just about trying. Maybe it's just about taking that step. Maybe it's just about breathing.

He's not dumb enough to not know when he's lying to himself. Keith would readily admit that he's been so far-off the finish line that he, might as well, have not been in the race to begin with. Still, thing is, all of this – from the dunes outside the Garrison, to the purple-tinged halls of the Galra battleship and, well, maybe even Shiro's proud smile at the end of the road – maybe all of it just boils down to keeping on going forward.

He takes a breath, or two, or two thousand, and with one hand on Red's paw, Keith pulls himself up.

"Fucking _wow,_ " he shouts, or would have had his voice any inkling of strength left to it as his vision stutters to white, fire-hot pain arcs through his limbs and only pure stubbornness keeping him alive enough to keep breathing.

His tongue is lolling out as he pants, like a dog. Like an animal. Alive. _Alive._

If Lance could see him now, he'd either have an aneurysm trying to find the right words to punctuate the picture of pathetic Keith was or his head would be blue trying to breathe through his laughter. The idea, oddly, has the edges of his lips tilting up even if Keith would rather die than admit that he kinds of enjoys Lance's barbs from time to time.

When his vision isn't in danger of turning his world white on white, and the rest of it has straightened back to the monochrome sea it had been before, Keith turns to look at Red. Most of the damage had been limited to the dorsal side. There were some scorch marks – uneven, blackened – across her front, and on her face, but nothing too damaging as far as his eyes can tell. The Lions were…unique. They never really took damage as extensive as this one was before, and didn't need that much maintenance. He had chalked it off to Altean technology – a ten-thousand year old development that far surpassed humanity's in so many light years, it was funny.

He had no idea how he'd start on fixing her – especially that leg – but he's grateful, somewhat, that it wasn't completely unsalvageable.

"Don't worry, buddy," Keith whispered, patting the metal paw. "you'll be up in no time, alright?"

There's no resounding roar, no pulsing warmth in his veins that seemed more and more like another heart. No mental link, no psychic force responding to his thoughts. Like tied to a rope cut from the ship, he felt lost.

He powers through, furrowing his brows and refusing to blink, his grasp on the metal tight enough to bend it if he only had the strength.

Keith turns to the side and appraises the line of trees. There were no mountains, as far as he could tell, above the tree line. Just a seemingly endless run of too tall, too thin trees with too many leaves, blanketing each other like an infinite swath. He tried to listen to some sign of life – a bird call or the buzz of insects, maybe the occasional cry from some forest critter. There was nothing, though, save the whooshing sound of the wind and ripple of the leaves.

He lets go of the paw and his hand falls to his waist, where he feels the grip of his Bayard. Looking down, Keith grabs and extends his hand out, tapping into the now-absent link between Red and him. He doesn't expect much, but he still feels the brick-wall disappointment as the blade failed to materialize. If he thinks too much about it – if he lets himself curl into a ball and mourn and despair – he's never going to make it. He can't be emotional, not right now. He has to be logical and calm. He has to be rational. He has to think—

He has to be like Shiro.

Ironies. The word is ugly, Keith realizes. He's always been content to stare from afar, to ignore the gnawing hunger in him – for recognition (probably), companionship (maybe), or more (perhaps) – and allow himself to believe that this is enough, that the shadowed corner in the mess hall where only the sound of his own fork against the plate echoed in his ears was enough.

When the first step he takes after standing doesn't immediately have him falling to the ground, he considers that a victory. A small one, in a very short line of victories, but he can take that. He'll have to. He'll learn to take his chances and celebrate the moments he can overcome. He has to look at that, think of that and focus on that and nothing else. He'll make it. He has to.

Patience, that's something Shiro believed that he was capable of. Keith can try. He did it before, right?

He takes another step…and keeps on standing. Another, and he breathes. Another, and he breathes again. It's slow, but it's steady and he just keeps breathing with every step he takes. He can do this.

Keith doesn't know what time it is – if time works the same way here as it did on Earth. Travelling in space and plunging into worlds regardless of the time zones hadn't really done much good for Keith and jet – er, spaceship lag? – lag, and he's often had to make do with keeping up odd hours to adjust himself. The rest of the team had the same problem at the start, the only exception seemed to be Shiro – who was used to it from his time traveling to Kerberos on his first pilot run. Keith's always had more of a difficult time adjusting, used to being awake at night and keeping a few hours of rest, but when you're on a mission to save the universe and you have to be aware enough to know left from right, that meant getting a good amount of sleep, or as Shiro would insist.

Looking up at the grey sky – he can't seem to spot any suns, the entire horizon seemed to be covered in a blanket of grey – there was no telling what the planet – or moon or whatever – would be like at night, or how long night would be. He needs to find shelter, or make his own if that's what he has to do. All it would take is just enough time for him to contract hypothermia and he won't have to worry about getting back anymore.

And—

Now that Shiro's back—

Keith swallowed.

Not now, he told himself. Not yet. Soon. I promise.

He takes one look back at Red, at her fallen form – supine, curling in on herself as if to hide from the pain – and it takes everything he has in him to turn away.

 _Don't worry,_ Keith thinks, brands it in his brain. _I'll get us home_.

* * *

The first time Keith actually talks to Shiro, or maybe it was the other way around, was still on the roof deck, probably the tenth night they've sat there, looking up at the stars. They'd been up there, for a while now, and Keith had barely breathed a word to him since the first night. Their eyes have met, and Shiro continues to smile at him – in response to Keith's unsure nod and consternation, but has never initiated conversation with him. A part of him is fine with it – fine with the silence between them. Silence is safe, where words that don't mean what they mean have no power. Silence isn't lonely, he tells himself. It's not.

And, somehow, a part of him wonders – and questions. For what reason did Shiro do this? He was an officer, he basically had the right to report him. Keith knew any other officer, hell, any other _cadet_ would pay anything to get him punished. It's not like Keith is blind, he knows when and where he's not wanted. He's been unwanted all his life, this was just one more notch in a tally growing higher by the day.

Was it pity? The runt of the group with no friends and star-student Shiro probably saw him as another opportunity to shine above the rest. Was it for fun? Try to see how long he can keep Keith wondering, looking over his shoulder, the idea of Shiro – nice, wide smile, honest brown eyes – laughing at his back.

Fuck him, then. Fuck them all. Keith didn't need Shiro. He didn't need anyone.

He didn't need.

He never had. Before.

His hackles rising, Keith just leaned up and started mouthing off constellations he knew, lips tracing over the names of each one, eyes following each end, forming the shapes in the sky. He runs them through his mind, his anger slowly dying, his frame slowly easing off its tension.

"Regulus," Keith paused, the voice cutting through his softly-whispered words. He doesn't turn to Shiro, but he does stop, his head turned slightly. There's only silence on the other's end, and Keith doesn't allow himself to wait for it – waiting hasn't done well for him, he's been waiting for all his life – and he's about to resume his mindless repetition when Shiro cuts in.

"You missed Regulus. You were naming the main stars of each constellation. You got them all right, except for Leo."

"What?" Keith asked, a repeat of their first meeting. He finally turns to the officer, and Shiro's head is tilted to the side, his dark hair falling into his eyes, a small smile on his face. He doesn't know what to do, when aimed at with that smile, so he settles with his hands fidgeting by his sides, his index finger digging deep into his thumb knuckle. Shiro doesn't seem to notice, until he stands from his seat and slowly makes his way forward.

Keith doesn't move, unsure on what to do, a bit – well, it's stupid – terrified as the man settles beside him. Not too close, but closer than anyone else. He's been kept at arm's length before – a very long arm – and it's been a while since someone had sat this close next to him outside a class room.

Shiro continued to smile, tightlipped, one corner of his lips raised – lopsided – and there was – Keith's not good with reading emotions but he can guess – amusement? He doesn't really know what's so amusing, but it's what he sees. And it—

Something inside him unfurls at the sight. It's warm and molten, like a dying star, and it has Keith biting his lip hard.

Shiro raises a hand, points to a quadrant and from Keith's position, he can see it aimed at one bright star. "Denebola." Then, Shiro moves to another direction, although Keith is unsure which star he's pointing at. "Algieba. Binary stars."

Keith turned away from the stars to look at Shiro, who was looking at the sky. He looks at the tan skin, the dark hair falling into his eyes, the even cut of his hair and the seam of his uniform where neck meets shoulder. Shiro turns back to him, eyes far too soft – softer than anything Keith's had all his life – and he blinks, turning away, and he knows his ears are burning.

Shiro is quiet, and Keith can still feel that gaze on him, before the next words are said – whispered – softly. "Rasalas and Chertan."

Keith looks up and sees Shiro pointing to one more star, opposite Denebola.

"Regulus. The little king."

And the thing is—

When Keith hears the name, when those the treble of Shiro's voice catches on the last syllable, he's not thinking about multiple star systems or binary companions. His thoughts aren't on occultations and main sequences. Kepler's third law, luminosity and general relativity are as far from him as Regulus is as far from earth. What oscillates over and over is the gentleness of Shiro's smile, and the reflections of Leo dancing in his eyes.

* * *

The forest was endless, just an infinite line of trees as far as he can see and Keith knew that he'd fall over before he could even get to halfway of wherever the hell is. He leans against a nearby trunk for support as he takes time to breathe, the light cutting through the leaves in patches, and he can see the rays – crepuscular – weaving in between the trees.

He knows he has to go with Plan B, which is to find shit strong enough for him to hide under in case of a sudden storm or – recalling the beach – an impromptu tsunami. He has no delusions, Red isn't moving away from the shore for a long time and the safest he would probably be is to camp somewhere near Red. He wished he could pry the Lion's mouth open and crawl into the cockpit but with its current state, he was probably better off outside.

Just gotta make sure that he has something over his head, enough to keep him warm, keep him alive. It's not lost on him how life continues to want him dead, it seems. It's not like Keith really asked for it, though.

Well, depending on who you would ask. Maybe.

Red sometimes gives him these looks – or, well, whatever you consider the equivalent of the Lion turning to look at you – that sorts of stop outside the gates of Pity-sville. Maybe it's the connection, the psychic bond, that allows Red to know it's the universe out on a mission end him and it's not Keith personally, or consciously anyway. And if it was, it's probably because he deserves it and he's fine with keeping his head down and licking his own wounds if it meant nobody else got hurt in the process.

Shiro's looks are unreadable, because Shiro's a saintly asshole bastard who is too nice for his own good. Shiro holds his face like the polished marble of a monument and grazes his fingertips so light over the bruises that even though Keith's blood beats faster, they don't start to hurt. Shiro said once you should take better care of yourself, and then, slowly, like he was in a trance, like a dream, like he was reciting something written somewhere he could barely see—You've always lived like your life doesn't matter, but it does—to many more people than I think you know. And we'd like for you to be around for a long time.

It's funny, the things that you start piecing together – the connections you're making – when you're stranded in the middle of nowhere with a broken Lion and half-a-step-away from breaking down completely. Your brain starts hotwiring things you've never really wondered, or was too impossible (scared) for you to start wondering.

Connections like _maybe Shiro pays this unhealthy amount of attention to me because he knows, probably is right, that I'd never give me a second glance, but he thinks I'm good enough for it._

Or like _maybe he talks about the future sometimes because he wants me to believe I have one._

Or like _I think he's in love with me._

Or _Shit. I think I love him, too._

Keith blinks, once – twice – maybe thrice, just to make sure that the world hasn't upended and exploded at the realization. Interesting. Just—yeah. Just one more reason to survive, then.

He turns his head, and blinks once more – the fourth time, actually – to make sure that he's not just imagining the things he's seeing. Off to the side, hidden by the too-similar trees or by Keith's own distractions, was a fallen tree. Most of the tree was still intact, the leaves long and thin but numerous, in sharp-like shoots, and he starts thinking, planning. One branch wasn't enough, but if he stacks more and more together and, he looks down at the ripped material of his pant leg, it's enough for a makeshift roof at the very least.

Keith's never gotten anything he wanted – or not the way he wanted it – but he was fine with taking what he could and settling for it.

Orphan. Failure. Abandoned. One-time synonyms and chapter-titles of his entire life. Keith knows, intimately, what it means to hold on to what little he has left.

He grits his teeth, bares his fangs at the pain and thinks—

This is what Shiro would do. Survive. Live.

Not give up.

Because—

He swallows.

Because he's waiting for me, Keith admits, allows himself to be weak enough to admit what he wants. Maybe. Probably. Unlikely.

But it is what it is, and it's what he wants.

 _Take what you can. Give nothing back._ Words he lived by, punctuated by the shine of a million stars across a blanket of blue-black. A smile – curved at the edges, mirth dancing on the lips – and the gleam of too kind, too honest brown eyes. A snuffed-out fire in the wake of a tumultuous storm.

Shiro had said that once, an almost-lifetime ago.

He takes that step forward, and another and another.

* * *

After that night, it seemed like a dam had opened and the flood waters started rushing in. No holds barred, they were relentless in crashing through every feeble wall Keith has built in the last eighteen years, and he should have realized sooner that he was no match for the full force of a star that was Shiro Takashi.

The tight-lipped smiles, the twinkling brown eyes, the soothing tenor voice that barely carried above a whisper – that was all it took for Keith's walls to collapse, for him to look back at Shiro across the roof deck and _want_ to inch closer, for him to want for Shiro to turn away from the stars and look at him, for that gaze to focus on nothing else but him.

Keith – who barely had anything to his name.

Keith – who was skilled enough to get into the cadet program, but only because there was nowhere else for him.

Keith – who had the kindling fire of a dying star in his chest, fluttering brighter at every curve of Shiro's smile, or at every hitch of the timber of Shiro's laugh.

Because what – in all honesty – does Shiro see in him? What does the bright-eyed ace student see in an awkward, quiet boy who can't string two words together without them meaning what he doesn't want them to mean? What does Shiro see in a beaten-down kid – because that's what he is, that's what he's called, from instructor to peer – who can only fight and fight and do nothing else?

"Why?" He had asked, cutting Shiro off as he made to guess at temperature levels off Ursa Major's stars.

"Hmm?" Shiro hummed, turning to him, his head tilting to that same angle. Always. That angle that had light cutting past the shadows, made his edges softer, his features eased. Younger. Keith bites his lip, and counts to a hundred to still the unfurling heat inside him.

"Why do…why do you talk to me?" Keith finally managed to blurt out – almost after an eternity of silence. _Why me?_

"Why not?" Shiro asked back, something…wistful, or sad playing on his lips. Keith stares at them far too long for it not to be weird, and the gleam in Shiro's eyes change, his brows furrow and there's this familiar feeling – this ugly feeling – rearing its head at Keith. Pity.

Somehow, the bile that grows and suffuses inside him doesn't start piling out of his mouth like a hydra's poison the moment he recognizes the look. Somehow, he manages to swallow down the disgust – he's not sure if it's directed at Shiro or at Keith himself but he feels he knows who he's disgusted at – and manages not to choke and drown in it. Somehow, he manages to power on through the seconds that come after, until he finds enough strength to stand to his feet.

"Fine." He manages to rasp. Vitriol colors his voice. "Fine."

Shiro's gaze follows him up, but Keith is staring at the space above the other's shoulders. He can't—can't look at him right now, can't let the other see how much, how deeply he had managed to get under Keith's skin and tear open the roots of his defenses. He can't, because if he does, he's left with nothing. He doesn't have a lot left, except for his tattered pride.

Keith wants to say something scathing, something angry, something to lacerate Shiro and cut him like how the look cut Keith, but his voice makes no sound and his lips don't move. He turns and walks away, trying to salvage what dignity he had left, played for a fool. As if his life hadn't been one comedy routine after the other, and he the main act.

He reaches the door, intends to slam it shut when Shiro's voice reaches his ears. He doesn't intend to listen, doesn't give a _shit_ for what the man has to say—

But his legs stop.

His hands remain resolutely at his side even as the door is just half a pace away from him.

And he can't do anything but listen.

"You're here because of skill." Shiro said, his voice not necessarily light but not at all unkind. "I'm not blind. I see you, Keith. I see you at the corner of the mess hall. I see you by your desk at the edge of the classroom. I see you doing team runs by yourself."

Keith remains quiet, doesn't know what to say to that. His back is still turned, and he doesn't have it to turn to Shiro.

"I'm not deaf, either. I know the talk. It's impossible not to. Hundreds of people locked in one base with only one exit?" Shiro chuckles. "You'd literally have to be dead not to hear things, like this one cadet with high enough flight sim scores to give me a run for my money, or that this cadet also managed to beat his instructor on his first day."

"What's your point?" Keith blurts out, voice thin.

Shiro pauses, and Keith hears a sigh. "My point is that you're one skilled kid and— no, one skilled man who manages to get this far by himself, without help from anyone, even when everyone around you seems to be committed to pulling you down. That takes a lot of courage and strength, and I respect that. I respect you, Keith. I respect your strength and skill, but most of all, I respect that you're a good man."

To hear those words, from Shiro – it's like feeling the waves of the sun against his face and knowing it's not going to burn you. Keith feels his ears burning, feels his heart pounding and the molten heat inside him expanding, threatening to consume him in a destructive inferno.

"Who says I'm a good man? You don't even know me." Keith half-turns to him, glares balefully at Shiro. Bitter enough to know that the sunlight can only warm you for so long before you start catching fire.

Shiro just smiles back at him, and try as he might, Keith can't find any trace of deception in it.

"So, I don't see you scraping the leftovers off your plate and into the trash bin before returning it to the mess hall cook? Or that I don't see you intentionally slowing down your forms during weapons training so that your other classmates can catch up?"

Keith's breath hitches—

"Yeah, I don't know a lot about you, Keith, but I like the few things I know."

Was there any retort to that? Or to the cavalcade of emotions chasing after his own heart, as Shiro looks up at him with that same smile, with those too gentle, too kind eyes?

The ache in his chest threatens to leave him gasping, to claw its way out of his own chest until fire and gold explodes like a spirit escaping its bonds, so Keith does the only thing he could at the moment—

He opens the door, takes a step forward, and turns a bit just to look at Shiro – who was still looking back at him.

"Good night, Shiro."

The smile grows bigger. Just a bit. "Good night, Keith."

And Keith promises himself – no more, not again. Never again.

The next night, he finds himself on the roof deck, and Shiro's already there, sitting at the edge and smiling up at him. Keith takes a seat – and he doesn't intend it, not at all, how he settles his hand by his side and he can feel Shiro's own hand settle next to his, how the distance between them grows shorter, their forms grow closer, the fire in his heart grows warmer.

Just a bit.

* * *

With whatever strength he has left, Keith pulls one more scrap of cloth from his pant leg. He ignores the ripping sound, the blue-black bruise on his bare leg (he really did get thrown a lot during the crash here), and stands back up. His vision trembles a bit, his knees shaking, but he manages to set himself upright enough to continue tying the last of the branches to the others.

He decided on settling the branches he could carry back to Red, managing to bring around seven of them. They were tall and long, and if he held them upright, almost twice as tall as him. He settled them over the space between Red's head and paw – the juncture where the mechanical limb met shoulder – and started piling the branches over each other, the leaves rustling as they were banded together. A part of him hates the fact that he's had to fall to this, to turn his friend into something he needed to use for his own survival—

But it's just one more thing, Keith knows. Just one more line he's crossed if it meant keeping himself alive.

Alive for what, exactly?

Alive for rescue? For help to come? For Shiro to come bearing down like a godsent angel? Nobody knew he was here. Not a single one. The Deucalion's contractors were half a galaxy away, past asteroid fields and Einsten-Rosen bridges and whatever shit the universe had in it. His Lion was beamed off-course, critically damaged, and only the remnants of that psychic bond and his need to survive caused Red to take off for whatever sanctuary she could find as the Deucalion and her crew – Shiro and the rest – disappeared into hyperspace.

There's the possibility that he could be trapped here, for the rest of his life. The thought has Keith's legs trembling, his fingers shaking as he tries to tie the branches together.

"Keep it together. Keep it _fucking_ together." He whispers, harshly. He can't let himself break down. Alive. That's what's important. The only thing that matters now.

Just breathe.

Not much for it except fervent fucking hope and one damn foot in front of the other. Forget the fucking pain shooting upwards through his left thigh, spearing outward with every rhythmic pressure on the knee; forget the dull ache across his abdomen, twinging when he takes a step; forget the chafing sand against his stiffening uniform; forget the greyed out faces of the people he's cared long enough to call friends, to Lance's annoying grin or Hank's sheepish smile or Pidge's wide-eyed curiosity—

Shiro's soft, _soft_ eyes and that tightlipped smile just for him—

He has to get out of this, because he has to get home—because he has to know that there's a fucking home to go to. He has to prove it to himself. He owes it to the ones who won't ever see theirs again.

His breath rushes, fast and ragged, spark-hot against his cracked lips for just a second before it dissipates.

Night seemed to finally descend on wherever he is, as the grey sky slowly darkens, the clouds prohibiting whatever stars were out there from reaching him with their light. On Earth, this is when the cicadas start singing, the buzz of the insects starting up – but he hears nothing but his own heartbeat in his chest, and he starts to make for the small shelter, where it's fractionally warmer – just a bit. Covered by Red's large metal limb on the side, her jaw by the other and the leaves on top, he's covered in shadows, but the warmth circulates around him and across his skin.

There are still some branches left, small ones that he could break off into twigs, and some rocks under the sand. He takes only a moment to decide, to see if it's worth the try as the exhaustion wears him down.

He leans forward and gathers the twigs, piling them together and setting the rocks he's found against them. They're not firewood, Keith knows that, but they're the best he's got. He's made do with little else.

Just a flick of the wrist, right? Strike the stones together, enough to cause friction – enough for that single spark – of hope, of faith – just enough for—

The twigs to catch fire.

The flicker of yellow ignites the path of the oxygen, which bursts into a bed of orange when it hits the kindling, and Keith doesn't think he's ever seen something so beautiful before. One of the bigger branches catches as the little flames lick at everything in reach, and the heat starts radiating outward, spilling like a fucking balm over his face and his outstretched arm.

He lets his own weight drag him back down, flat on his back on the sand. He takes a few deep breaths—slowly, testing the limits of his lungs, listening to the rasping of the air in and out of his mouth.

It's funny. Ridiculous.

So many things – a million things – are funny when you're so wrecked that the world's blurring to black at the peripheries, and every movement feels like tipping sickly on a tossing ship—like wading through molasses with tape over your eyes. In your eyes. Scratchy and obstructive, and the bile just sort of settles halfway up your throat and stays there, sloshing with the angle of the deck.

But it's funny how obvious it was…

He should have known.

Just the day before this mission, he and Shiro had one of their little talks. Just one of the few that they still have in the wake of the year-long absence of that god-awful Kerberos mission. In front of a little fire not unlike this. They've had a lot of these little talks before – on roof decks and in almost-clandestine meetings in the training room, and aboard Allura's ship. Thing is – a year can do a lot to people, and moreso to those that spent that year aboard a battleship as a prisoner of a conquering alien race.

Things change, and people change. The Shiro that came back to him in the aftermath of Kerberos was different – jaded, greyer, cynical. There was still the goodness, the kindness in them – but harsher, willing to do whatever it takes to save people, a tip-toe on a scale between right and wrong, and thing is—

Keith doesn't really blame him. Doesn't really blame Shiro for changing, when Keith himself had changed in the year that had gone.

But, on the occasions that their eyes would meet, where Shiro invites him to his room, for some stupid _hot chocolate_ of all things, a little fire dancing in the hearth of his room _aboard a spaceship_ because Allura and her people's technology was just that insane and, in spite of it all, in spite of feeling like he somehow got sucker-punched into a kid's Saturday morning cartoon show, it still felt—

Cozy. Warm.

Welcoming.

 _Home._

Always neat, tidy, Shiro's ingrained military training not going anywhere anytime soon. The crackle of the little fire by the grate of the hearth, and sometimes Keith would look up from his mug to see that Shiro was—staring. Half the time it was the fire, half the time, it was him.

And Keith would feel his heart and soul bubble into a right-side mess in his throat, itching to tumble out. The amber light of the fire set Shiro's skin golden, the harshness of the white of his hair against the dark, the frown lines and the circles under his eyes all but disappearing. Scarlet and gold across molten russet, and Keith is reminded that he was still not match for Shiro, whose light had eclipsed but still shone, a trailing comet across a darkened sky.

And he doesn't have it in him to notice the time, that the more they started on these little talks, the earlier they did so the longer they stayed, the longer Keith stayed, in a room that smelled too much like Shiro and ignited the longing in him like a reawakened lantern on a cold night.

That last night, Shiro had been quiet – quieter than usual – as Keith sat on the chair across his, barely half a meter away from the other. If he had moved his leg, they'd have been touching. Keith wasn't brave enough for that.

Shiro had stared at his hand – the right one, the mechanical one – and it wasn't like Keith didn't know what it could. It's not as if he could have forgotten the purple blade it could create, a fearsome weapon especially in the hands of someone like Shiro, who struck with purpose, relentless.

Purple energy dances around Shiro's fingers, wispy. Beautiful.

Shiro had stared at his hand – his eyes taking in the digits and the twinkling light and Keith could see the mixture of emotions there, and could guess the few he could honestly name – confusion, guilt, regret, _fear_. Emotions that he's seen far too much in his own reflection in the last twelve months.

"I don't—" Shiro had started, brows furrowing as he grimaced. His right hand forms into a fist and Keith can see it trembling. "I know I'm more than…this thing they made me. I know I'm not just another killer, another _murderer._ I know I'm more than that."

The words were pained, guilt-ridden, and Shiro's eyes were unfocused, lost. He was biting his lip hard, Keith could see it, and when the next words were spoken, he saw red.

"I have to believe that, because if I don't—" Shiro swallowed. "I refuse to be that man. I refuse to be the man that destroyed everything he stood for. I refuse to let this turn me into a monster."

"You're not." Keith had spoken, far too hurried and hard, leaving no doubt on anyone's mind on the veracity of his words. "You're not a monster, Shiro."

And Keith believes that – he does. He doesn't believe in a lot of things, has spat on a great many of them even, but he believes what he sees and he sees that Shiro's a good man. A good man who got torn apart by things beyond his control. A good man who had been forced to make decisions that could break a weaker man.

And it's unfair, ugly and grating, how Shiro was before him – alive but broken, breathing but wounded, like a husk of who he was – but there was no turning back.

"Aren't I, Keith?" Shiro had turned to him, eyes meeting Keith's, but there was no hardness to them. Just resignation. Just exhaustion. "I have more blood on my hands than you could ever know."

And Keith was so ready to tear into him, to utterly destroy all that because Shiro wasn't. He wasn't a monster. Nobody, no one, not even Shiro himself, can convince Keith that he was a monster. So, he does what he does in any situation – without thinking.

He grabs Shiro's right hand and locks their fingers together — the energy disappearing — just as surprise takes over Shiro's features and righteous rage over Keith's. "I trust you, Shiro. I trust you, and I know you're not a monster. I wouldn't trust you if you were."

And maybe it's that – the all-too honest declaration of trust, of Keith letting his walls down for Shiro to see what's inside. For the vocal admission of how much Shiro had changed him, had allowed him to become that person – the kind of person that knows how to _trust_ , how to _believe_ in people. Maybe it's just that, above all else, where Shiro could see every nuance of Keith's emotions like a clear-glass pane of a jewelry box.

Shiro had squeezed his hand, and said nothing more, but the white-hot brightness of emotion in Shiro's soft, far too _soft_ eyes spoke more than anything he could have said.

And he holds on to that.

He holds on to that moment, just as he stretches out and rests his head against the metal paw. He's tired, and still in pain. Surprisingly, he's not hungry yet, but he knows he'll have to eat something, come morning. Right now, he just needs to sleep.

"Don't worry, buddy," he says – quietly, the words almost swallowed by the sound of the rushing waves. A breeze picks up, and the growing fire dances at it, and only a slight draft reaches him. He's not as cold as he would have imagined it to be. "I'll get us home. We'll be alright. I know it."

Shiro would be proud.

* * *

"It's not forever, Keith." Shiro's voice comforting, understanding, as he continues to stare at the side of Keith's face. He can pretend as much as he want, but he knows that Shiro knows how aware he is of the pilot. It was impossible not to be aware of Shiro — who seemed to thrive on touch, on tactile comfort. A pat on the back, a hand on his shoulder, fingers threading through Keith's hair to ruffle it — things, mere little things that meant so little to others but had his insides trembling, warming, broiling as if in a soup pot.

Keith tried to ignore the warmth of Shiro's arm around his shoulders, at the press of those bare fingers on the skin just beneath the hem of his sleeve. It was warm — incandescent, like all of what Shiro is. Bright laughter, gleaming smile and soft eyes. Unapologetically generous with his kindness, even to those unworthy (or unwilling).

But he can't be distracted — doesn't allow himself to be — as he remembers the reason for this, the reason for Shiro placating Keith, like Keith's opinion was something important to him. He wants to scoff. Nobody cared what Keith thought, why should Shiro? Especially when it came to something like his career? It doesn't take a genius to figure out how rare this opportunity was — not everyone who passes the space cadet program _actually_ gets to be a space cadet. Some just spend their entire careers at base as control analysts, others end up being instructors. Only a few get to rush past the expanse of Earth's own gravity.

And was it surprising that, out of all the people that could have gone for this, it had to be Shiro? Top student Shirogane Takashi, who was the best that the Garrison had to offer - the cream of the crop, the ideal for all space cadets. A part of him is reminded of his anger, of his jealousy - at the title, the achievement and victory.

Another part is angry because what they see when they look at Shiro is nothing more than another trophy, another medal on their chest - just someone with hopes and dreams that they'll use to their advantage and discard when it's over. Keith refused to believe that Shiro is that naive, that he doesn't realize the world doesn't give a shit on what people want, what they dream to be - that, in the end, all they could have is what the world deigns to give them. Or maybe Shiro's that good of a person, to look past the cynicism and still see the beauty in it.

Who was Keith to disagree when all he sees past the propaganda and the marketing is a dark-haired man with a too-bright smile and too-soft eyes, whose tongue lolls out as he tries to fix his speeder, who prefers to go by his last name than his first ('Takashi makes me sound like I'm eighty. Stop laughing, Keith'), who occasionally tripped on flat ground when nobody was watching — when it comes down to it, Keith is just another hypocrite in a line of hypocrites.

"A year, right?" He asked - even though he was completely aware of the answer. Still, it was worth it, to see the worry disappear from Shiro's face and replaced by excitement. Really, he was weak. He couldn't stand up to that.

"Yeah, just a year. It's a routine mission, no worries on it. I'll be back before you can even miss me." Shiro answered, words rushed, his excitement palpable.

 _I already miss you, and you haven't even left yet._ The words are at the edge of his tongue, and had he been braver, Keith would have let them out, let them into the air after weeks - _months_ \- of keeping them to himself under heavy lock and key. He only lets the words warm him, reminds him as to what keeps him staying here - in this base where nobody cared about him but Shiro - in the nights that were too difficult for him to get through, like a little flame in a snowstorm, fragile and tremulous.

"I bet," Keith smiled back, a bit. That was as honest as he can get with himself for the moment. "You leave next week, right?"

Shiro doesn't look away from him, the trace of excitement still there in his eyes, but Keith feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end at the way the other's eyes map his face, the moonlight gentle across the russet. Keith blinked and bit his lip, unsure of the emotion in Shiro's eyes.

The pilot's eyes drop to his lips and Keith's throat runs dry. He's dimly aware of how close they are, of Shiro's arm around his shoulders - the scent of cedar and sandalwood seeping through the pilot's black shirt - the rustle of the wind cruising through his dark hair. There was barely any distance, and if Keith would turn his head one way — Shiro the other — and take that final inch, their lips would meet.

This... _thing_ between them had become so electric, almost volatile. But not dangerous. Not painful.

It kept Keith's heart pounding fast, kept his hands sweating and - for some weird-ass reason - has left him smiling on the days he once thought he had long forgotten to. In the almost-stolen, almost-clandestine, almost-forbidden moments where their eyes meet across a busy hall, Shiro looking away from his friends to lock his eyes with Keith's on the other end.

Shiro looks up, and there's this _heat_ in his eyes, and whatever it is, it's infectious. The arm around Keith's shoulder tightens - infinitesimally - but Keith can feel it in every nerve of his body, the way he can feel every one of Shiro's breaths, fanning across his lips and his cheek. Too close, too warm, too much _too._

There's a bang, from down below, and Keith watches as Shiro blinks, his body tensing. Keith's follow suit half a second later, as they stay still and silent, listening to raucous laughter below. When the soldiers below had stopped laughing and gone their way, the moment was gone and Keith wasn't sure if the weight in his stomach is disappointment or excitement.

Shiro seemed to have the same conflict, his arm loosening its hold around Keith's shoulders - even though Keith would have wanted nothing more than to press his forehead against the other's neck and let the man hold him forever.

"I should—" Shiro stammers, looking away, wide-eyed and totally unlike how he normally is. He makes a motion with his free hand, groping for lost words and Keith looks away before the other can see the disappointment on his face grow tenfold.

"Yeah," Keith tries to make his voice as even as it normally is, hidden beneath the gruff and the monotone. "Me too. I gotta be somewhere tomorrow early, stuff to do."

A blatant like, one both Keith and Shiro knew. Tomorrow was Keith's liberty, and Shiro had managed to weasel out a promise to have Keith join him on a ride.

"Oh. Yeah." Shiro sounds weird, his voice a bit strained. Keith can only pretend so hard not to know what caused it. "I guess I'll see you, uh, around?"

He doesn't like it - this awkwardness, this _distance_ between them. Not when — not when Keith's learned to allow himself to hope. Not when Keith's allowed himself to accept that Shiro had crashed into his walls like a freight train with a smile. The gaping maw between them is ugly, tense and lonely.

Keith's learned to think of solitude as Keith and Shiro. Being by himself suddenly seemed colder.

Shiro stands and pats his hands on his jeans, turning to Keith for a bit, lips mouthing unsaid words before turning away—

"Shiro." He calls out to him and the pilot pauses, tensing a bit. He doesn't want this. He wants to go back to how they were, because if this is what happens when Keith acts on his own feelings, then it's not worth it. Nothing is worth losing Shiro's friendship, even if it meant friendship is the only thing he'll ever have.

It's enough. More than enough. More than what Keith ever had in his entire life.

"Shiro, I—" The other turns to him, face bare and hopeful. Keith gives him a small smile. "Can we hang out tomorrow?"

Shiro eyes him, wide and tender, and it takes eighteen years of willpower to keep Keith from melting on the spot at the warmth of Shiro's gaze, before the man smiled, reaching a hand out to ruffle his hair. Keith pretends to scowl, but all he notices is the lips mouthing the word 'yes' over and over.

Yes, this is enough.

The week ends, and Keith doesn't see Shiro off on his flight. They've already said their goodbyes the night before, on the roof deck and under Draco's light, their shoulders pressed against each other and Shiro's cheek pressed against the crown of his head as they tried to name the stars the other pointed to as fast as they could. Shiro's hand was over his, snuck tight in between their pressed thighs. They don't make mention of the almost-kiss. Keith loses the game, maybe on purpose or maybe not, blinded by Shiro's victorious grin. It's enough. It really is.

Half a year in, the Kerberos mission is deemed a failure. The entire crew is considered dead.

Keith tastes nothing but regret on his tongue.

* * *

He wakes to a storm - thunderous and temperamental. The rain is beating heavily against his makeshift roof, and although the wind hasn't managed to rip it away from its pitiful bindings, water is seeping into the cracks and spaces. He shifts in his seat, cursing as he went, as he felt the water drip down his shoulder. He looks outside, where the trees were swaying along the wind, the leaves crinkling like paper - hurried, rushed, fast.

A rumble, almost faint, was heard before being followed by a blown-out roar across the skies. Keith grabs the remaining leaves near him, rips out another line of cloth from his leg, and ties them together. It takes a him a while - with his shaking hands and the growing worry at the imminent cold - before he manages to make a wrap which he used to cover the opening, shutting most of the wind out. It still seeped through the cracks, leaving him shaking, but not as often and as intense as it had been before. He rubs his arms and palms together, breathes through them and keeps them from trembling too much. The occasional water that seeped in was unavoidable, and he ended up opening his mouth and letting it fall in.

The sea water was inedible, dangerous for consumption but rainwater was fine - as fine as he could get in a deserted island. He didn't worry about bacteria and alien shit anymore. If he didn't get any sort of hydration, he'll be dead anyway.

At least, this way, he's not dying a drawn-out, parched death. Dysentery, on the other hand, was a bit of a horrible way to go. Not like he has much of a choice. Not anymore.

Funny, though, in the way all these fucking things are currently 'funny' in his fragmented brain— how easy it is to destroy the human body. How many opportunities there are every day to ruin something—even just one system, just one organ, and the whole thing goes kaput. Boom. Explode. The human body can only take so much, after all.

His stomach protests at the lack of solids, but he ignores it, keeps opening his mouth to let the rain water in. It doesn't matter how he looks like, the lengths he'll go to keep on living on - it's all endless line, just one more won't hurt. Just one more thing. He's had to do a lot, it's nothing surprising.

When he finds a way back home, somehow - somewhere - then he'll just look back at this and think 'worth it', if it meant crawling back to Shiro, crawling back to the only person who ever made him feel normal in his own skin, only the personification everything that screamed 'home' to him.

Keith's always been more comfortable falling off the edge of the cliff to get to the bottom, anyway. Climbing down was slow, and the view was amazing.

* * *

It doesn't take much for him to leave the Garrison after that, when the only reason that kept him staying was now considered dead. Keith, of course, doesn't believe it. Some would think that he's being emotional about it, that he's letting grief and rage cloud his judgement and leaving him impaired. Shiro was a great pilot, they would say, but he's only human. Even Shiro makes mistakes, and this time, it cost him his life.

Funny—well, y'know, not, but whatever—how the instinct never goes away; how as soon as the world's too bright, too much, too great a height of agony to bear, every human being he's ever met recoils into the fetal position like it'll stave off the cruelty of the universe somehow. Like it's possible to go back to the warmth, the insulation—to unconsciousness, to dependence, to twinned heartbeats and total safety. Like it's possible to unwrite your own existence if you make yourself small enough—

That's how he feels — the world's too bright, too much. Except there's no warmth, no insulation. No twinned heartbeat chasing after his own. Just his, a single rapid, machine-gun beating that constantly reminded that it could have had a pair, have had another to beat alongside.

When the truth is distorted, when lies and pity mixes together to turn into something ugly - like a painted caricature meant to hurt, to wound him - when everything that reminded him of Shiro, his dreams, the things he could have been - the person he could have been - was just a husk of what they were, replaced by the shady cover-ups and the stark reminders of what failure entailed, it was just too much.

Keith's never been much for goodbyes, and when the final nail in the coffin is the punch flying towards the lieutenant's face on his ongoing tirade of why Shiro failed the mission, why he's dead, why he's not here, how Shiro failed — failed — failed — failed — failed—

Shiro, who was nothing but kind and selfless. Shiro, who had been the only one to make Keith feel like he actually belonged somewhere, and wasn't just a vagabond ghost twisted and defiled in his own skin—

Dishonorable dismissal was something he could barely give a rat's ass all about.

And he spends the days, the weeks, the _months_ on his own. He spends it starting at an endless sky, except it's a lot colder, a lot lonelier when it's only his voice naming the constellations. The hundred nights on a cliff's edge and his red eyes taking in the line where the sun rises to greet the twilight sky, and turns the greyed out dunes into sierra, the black into rose gold and blue and the sting in his eyes from tears to sand.

Across mountains, and weird caves, and a streak through a dead crag with nothing to show but the growing weight on his shoulders, world-heavy and paralyzing. Some days, the only thing that keeps him going is pure stubbornness. Sometimes, it's the bitter irony that people expected him to constantly fail - and, fuck it, Keith wasn't letting them get that goddamn satisfaction.

It's a lot uglier when he passes by town and sees someone tall, muscular, dark hair and cheery smile and he turns to hope, on the fragile line hope—

"Shiro—" The man's smile freezes, his eyes confused and Keith lets go of the man's sleeve, feels shame and bitterness, anger and just so much _I miss you, you're not here anymore, you told me you'll come back, where are you, why did you leave me alone_ that he turns his head away and runs off—

Another mistake, another ghost.

The speeder is worn under his touch, the paint chipped off from too much sand grating at it. He doesn't have the money for a new paint job, and he doesn't really have it in him to cover the crimson. It was Shiro's — the only thing he had that Keith can still hold on to, after the theft and the running and the disappearing.

Maybe it's for the best if he disappears, too.

There was nothing for him here, or anywhere.

And Keith knows a thing or two, about the the things you have to hide to survive in a place like this—in a world like this. The sort of shit you have to cover up in the deepest confines of the center of your soul so no one else can spot it and chop it out and take it from you, because they will, here, if you give them just a fucking whiff of vulnerability and the time to draw their blades. They'll cut out everything you've got.

They can't have him; they never will; he's never going to roll over and let them clip that last collar on; he's never going to do their bidding with a fucking smile. He's still his own fucking man; they can't take that away from him until the day that he gives it up—until the day that he stops thinking, stops caring, stops reading in between the lines of every recruitment poster they put out. It's not who he is, not now, not ever. They can't reduce his soul to that. They can't slice the independence out of him and replace it with their vision for the country, for the world, unless he stops running long enough for them to get their knife tips in.

He doesn't plan on stopping.

* * *

Keith learns that, if you ignore the aftertaste, the pooled rainwater captured in Red's massive paws were alright enough. He presses his mouth against it, feels the slight chill against his chapped lips and laps at it, his tongue languidly helping along, the only thing he has enough energy for.

There's a grittiness to it — and it churns his stomach and makes him gag, but he has to. The aching in his stomach has dulled out into a mere annoyance, after hours of making him want nothing more than to bash his head in and make the _growling_ stop. It's not even funny anymore, after hours of repeating the image of his own self lapping at water like a fucking dog, the mirth has long gone and is replaced by just more pity. Less of a I-feel-sad-for-you pity and more of a someone-take-him-out-of-his-misery pity. Had there been someone with a gun pointed at his head, he's half a mind to let them blow his brains out like a scarlet flower streaking across Red's own coat.

The direction of his thoughts are dangerous, so Keith tries to focus on something else, like the slow tempering of his angry stomach. It'll get used to it, to rain water and nothing else. Not like there's much left on this island.

No animals, no sentient life. Except for him.

His own purgatory.

He leans back and allows himself to rest his head against the metal of Red's jaw. He's been here - what - a day and a half now? Looking at the slowly darkening sky, he better start counting again. Funny, with his stomach full of water, he doesn't really have the energy to worry, or think, or fear.

A part of him knows that this was no permanent solution. Soon, his body's going to start eating him from the inside out, pushing his organs to their limit to keep him alive. It starts with the kidneys, shot to death and irreparable and, slowly, his liver. Once his liver takes a hit, that was pretty much it. Operation: Keith is Fucked begins, with a hundred percent pass rate. End result: death.

It won't take long, unless he finds a suitable alternative food source, or a method of self-termination. Maybe a week, half a month at most. It's not likely, maybe he should have slowed down on the booze and the cigarettes before. Ah, well, it's not like he'll be alive long enough to regret it—

This would be the time where Shiro would shout his name, pissed, or Lance would pull at his collar and deck him.

The ache in his chest is the size of the Grand Canyon, his eyes blinking. I miss them. _I fucking miss them._

Through the tears, he sees the remains of the leaves he's used to turn into an impromptu flap. He grabs hold of it, his fingers pruny, but he doesn't care. He only allows himself a moment to wonder, to think — are you really fucking doing this, Keith? — before he whispers 'yes' and leans his head in to bite the leaf.

It tastes like other leaves. Something that reminds him oddly of the color green and _not delicious at all_. He'll take all the cabbage and broccoli now, thank you. He perseveres and chews, gags out at the taste and wants nothing more but to spit them out. His tongue is dry, his teeth feeling crunchy and the insides of his mouth tastes like shit. He throws the leaves to the side and kneels, stuffing rain water into his mouth to rid himself of the taste.

He doesn't notice the tracks of tears running down his cheeks, or the harshly whispered words in between the gulps.

 _Someone, please. Help me._

* * *

He really doesn't know why he stays. Not a single idea.

When the months stretch out to a year, and he's still there, on the edge of a cliff and watching the same sunrise he's had in the last three-hundred or so days, nothing comes up at him. There are days when he's on the speeder, everything that he's ever owned in a small pack over his shoulder and ready to disappear into the horizon. There are days where the heel of his boot is ready to thrust down and let it run and let him run as far as he could, as far as his eyes could see, as far as his fate could take him.

Yet, in that last second he counts down, he ends up sighing, pulling the helmet away and stepping down, shutting the speeder down. He can't do it.

The reason arrives, one night, where he can't sleep - like most of every week - and Leo is shining brightly across the sky, Denebola and Rasala and Regulus, mouthing off their names and—

A falling star cuts straight through Leo, but no — he could make out the shape, it was too close to Earth for it to be a meteor, far too slow for it to be anything outside Earth's gravity. A ship?

His heart is up in his chest, his mind buzzing and boggling—

 _Could it be?_

He stands there, dumbfounded, before he starts running towards the speeder, ignores his pack on the ground and rushes toward the hurtling streak, falling with the full force of a dying star.

The cliffs and the outcroppings are growing familiar, the light of Leo shining brighter, like a divine beast welcoming its prodigal son back home, and when he reaches the plateau and sees the blockaded impact site, patrolled by Garrison forces, there's nothing in his chest and his head but a name he hasn't heard in a really long while, a name he's been far too afraid and too ashamed to repeat.

Suddenly, all those fears and insecurities were utterly nonexistent in the face of all the 'could it be'.

He parks the speeder - to put it lightly - and jumps off it, doesn't even bother shutting it down as he runs across the shadows, sneaking past security guards, the familiar color schemes emblazoned, heralding him to his destination. A guard walks into the path he's on and he doesn't slow down, skirting around the man and hitting him right across the back of his neck and across his forehead.

A large tent-like structure, larger than the rest - the bubble - and he's bursting through the door.

All it takes is the sight of Shiro's unconscious form on the gurney for Keith to knock every other person in the room out, taking immeasurable pleasure as he slams the commander's unconscious body against the nearby tray.

And — God — suddenly his knees are too weak, his arms too heavy, as he staggers close to the body on the gurney, hoping beyond hope, his heart banging against the skin of his chest as his fingers hover over Shiro's face, at the scar across his nose, the shock white of his hair against the black and the criss-cross of so many age-old lacerations on his bare arms.

Arm. His eyes catch sight of the metal on where Shiro's right arm should be. It doesn't look like a glove — it looks like a prosthetic.

There's a sniffling, gasping sound that Keith is slow to realize is coming from his own mouth, pulling the knife from his boot to cut off the restraints keeping Shiro down. He can have his breakdown later. Now, he needs to get Shiro out. He doesn't have a plan, doesn't have a the slightest fucking idea what to do next, but what Shiro can't stay here, or else he'll never see him again. He'll be locked away like a shameful secret, an experiment gone wrong in the making.

He puts Shiro's left arm across his shoulder and hoists most of the man's weight against him. It's not easy - Shiro's always been bigger, bulkier than him and he seemed to have even grown bigger in the year-long absence. Still, the pain and burden on his side is a small price to pay - a price he's willing to pay over and over - if it meant that he can keep holding on to him for one more second, one more minute.

God, like another shot in the dark, another chance for someone like him.

He misjudges Shiro's weight, and he tumbles to his knee as Shiro's body falls of the gurney, his metal arm grating against the steel in the fall. The action and noise prods at the man, and the body beside Keith tenses, a pained groan pressed against his own neck and Keith turns to face Shiro, who's raising his head from the juncture of Keith's shoulder and looks at him - bleary brown eyes, tired, exhausted, _frightened_ until the fear gives way to surprise to _hope_ to recognition—

"Keith?" Shiro asks, voice hoarse, reedy. Barely a decibel higher than utter silence.

"Yeah, it's me," Keith answers, just as quietly. He'd rather give Shiro time to acclimate to his surroundings, but they were running out of time. Keith grits his teeth and stands, ignores the hair falling into his eyes as he keeps Shiro leaning most of his weight against him.

The man's confused gaze turned pained for a moment at the shift of gravity, before they blink back at him, already half-way to unconscious. "Where—wher—"

"Hey," Keith prodded and, fuck it, pressed a kiss against Shiro's forehead. "I got you, alright? I got you."

 _And I'm not letting go._

* * *

He can barely keep his eyes half-open, face pressed against the sand before he feels water rushing into his mouth and nostrils and suddenly, he can't _breathe._ His body automatically convulses, as he spits out water, sputtering, the bright pain in his chest and throat and eyes and fucking everywhere in his body. The sky is pitch-black, but there are flashes of light—

Lightning.

A rumble, deafened out and muted. He can feel it echo in the sand under his hands. Thunder.

What—

He turns to look back and sees no sign of his make-shift roof. Rain is pelting down on him like hail, and the waves rush at him relentlessly. He blinks away the sea water from his eyes, they sting and hurt, and tendrils of light crease through the night sky.

His senses are shot, every movement of his body is _painful_. His stomach is burning and it was torture to breathe. Was this how dying felt like? Was this how it felt like - at the end of everything? All the pretty-ass platitudes of peaceful sleep and unlocked shackles were full of _shit._

Keith tries to stand, but ends up slipping as a waves come at him, pushing him down, and leaving him cold and drenched. He coughs a few more out, spit mangling with the sea salt, and his hair is flat against his skin. His hearing is blown, the only pounding in them was the beating of his own heart, at a rate far too fast to be anything but healthy.

He reaches with a hand to grip Red's paw and manages to stagger himself to a stand, leaning his weight against her claw, and fuck if it didn't take all of him and some more to do that. Fuck it. The world had already took everything he had, what more can it take from him?

There was no light, save for the flash of lightning that occurred almost constantly, and the blue-grey waters seemed like a tumultuous black ooze that promised to swallow him. He only has a moment - by the grace of a distant lightning bolt - to hold himself steady as another wave crashes against him like a fucking ton of bricks.

He cries out, as his head is banged against the metal but he manages to hold on, only one eye open as the other was injured in the hit against the sharp edge of the claw. Something warm trickles down against his shut left eye — blood — and he tastes the metallic tang, panting as he tries to keep his eye open, to keep himself standing as wave after wave continued to crash against the shore.

He was so tired.

So fucking exhausted.

He's tired of holding on, of having to keep himself standing just for the world to beat him back down every single fucking chance it got. He's so _tired._

"Agh, ack— "He coughs out more sea water as the waves begin to grow higher and higher with each flash of light. "He—Help!"

His voice stutters out, cracks and dies and only his own lips heard them, the notes obliterated under the thunderous applause and the sharp-crackles of light. His knee gives out on him just as another wave hits him and he's thrown, rolling across the shore, sand in his nose and mouth as he hacks, wracks his lungs for air and tastes his own blood.

He feels wounds on his forearms, from shielding his face from hitting the rough shore, and the nearby flash of light painted the grey sand with red.

He falls to the shore as a sob echoes from his chest and out of his lips, except no sound comes out. He can't even make a goddamn sound as the beat of rushing waters pushed him deeper into the ground, his vision hazing out - black and white spots at the peripheries— and he doesn't realize he's whispering Shiro's name over and over as each wave comes to beat the life out of him.

Another cascade, and a sharp grating sound reaches his ears. It takes a while for him to notice, for the noise to cut through the rushing, the echoing and the billowing wind, the rumble of thunder. A wave runs at him again, and he turns his head away just in time as rocks are carried with it, pelting him across the shoulder. The dull pain was barely noticeable, as he turns his head to follow the sharp grating sound once more.

Lightning danced across the black sky and he sees Red and her dull form slowly sinking into the sea. Each wave slowly eased her down the slope of the shore, half her remaining hind leg already submerged.

"No, no, no—" He would have sounded panicked, terrified, had his throat been working, but the only thing he can do is stagger to a crawl towards his Lion, losing hold of the sand as more waves came at him, pushing him back, away from Red. _No, no, no, no, please, not her too._

He crawled again, can only catch sight of the sharp crimson of Red's coat in every spark of lightning, as he whispers her name over and over, reaching out with his hand and willing it forward, willing himself to extend, past the distance that felt as wide as a universe, pushed back by each wave.

Red was slowly sinking, half her body hidden in the dark waves, her dulled-out gold eyes listlessly staring back at him. Keith shouted, cried as loud as he could as the terror and grief and pain in his chest burst a thousandfold, the mangled garbage of the words he's whispering with a shot voice and the flaked-out vision of a blindness-inducing storm.

An ugly screeching echoed, his heart stopping, his skin cold, as Red completely fell into the roaring waves and disappeared.

It was just motion and reaction - his lips mouthing words it can't say - as he crawled forward, hurried, sobbed out how each step, each hand on the sand felt like a gunshot against his chest with every second and he didn't care. He can't lose her, not her, not her too. He's lost so much, lost so many people. He can't lose anyone else, not anymore.

A gigantic wave - bigger than anything he's seen - is gaining momentum towards the shore. The rushing of it seemed to eclipse everything else, even the thunder, and the sight of it erased every emotion in him - the fear, the terror, the bone-deep exhaustion - all of it faded in the light of running beast of an ocean.

What he tastes on his tongue is regret, a blown-out, dying star - one of the last - that still light his way home. He tries to hold on to the image in his head, the tight-lipped smile and the soft brown eyes and wonders if he could have done something differently, made a different choice - had he somehow found the courage to take the chances he's missed, would it have changed anything?

The wave crashes against the shore and the earth disappears from under him as he's submerged in water, the breath knocked out of his lungs in the force of it, seeping into his nostrils, his ears, eyes, everywhere it could get into.

His vision pans out to grey, and the dulled pain in his chest starts to sharpen - telltale signs of drowning. Somehow, the water isn't the chill of death he imagined. Somehow, it's warm - warmer than anything he's felt. Somehow, the thunder and lightning disappeared in its depths, replaced by the peaceful silence and the soft reverb against his skin. It was peaceful, calm. Safe.

He's spent far too long trying to hold on to what little he has left. Maybe it's time to let go.

 _Take what you can. GIve nothing back, right?_ A voice echoed in his ears. Warm. Kind. Like the gentle rays of the sun against his face. Like the rose-gold sunrise at the crack of dawn.

 _I've tried. I can't keep holding on._ _Everything keeps slipping from my grasp._ He thinks, surmises. This limbo was easy, listless. Everything he's deserved in the wake of all the sacrifices he's had to make.

 _I know. God, I know. You try so hard, every damn day of your life, Keith. I can't be any prouder of you._ The voice says, the words circling about him like a song, suffusing heat that has something inside him _wanting_ and _needing_ and _longing_.

Keith shakes his head, his eyes closed as he sinks deeper into the darkness. _I always fail. I can't protect anything. I couldn't protect Red. I couldn't protect you._

Something warm - a different kind of warmth, incandescent, bright - runs against the skin of his cheek, like gentle hands trailing too soft fingers against him. _Never. You've never failed me, Keith. You're the only one that kept me going. You're the only reason why I had to make it back, no matter what._

The words crack his chest open and finds rest inside, and suddenly the warmth pulling him into the depths, into the darkness starts to feel cold, starts to hurt than soothe, starts to choke the life out of him as the rushing current flings him around the maelstrom.

 _Hold on, Keith. Hold on. Just a bit more. I'm not letting you go. I promise. Never again._ Sincerity, with the inflections of too-soft, too-gentle. A sob escapes Keith's lips and into bubbles, as he opens his eye and reaches his hand up, towards the surface.

It was far, too far, and he was running out of air. Perhaps, he'd ran out long ago and his lungs were now squeezing out what's left. The pull of the storm dragged him further and further from the shore, promising rest, promising respite, promising no more. His own despair and fears had chained him to the inky bottoms, and he's straining past them, reaching for that line.

 _Almost there, baby. Almost. Just a few more and you'll be home._

Home.

His friends.

 _Shiro._

Desperation, fear, _desire, want_ — all of it, coalescing into a burning bright scream that echoed inside his chest as he reached forth, and suddenly there's rushing, the surface hurtling towards him, the darkness disappearing, the cold dying and—

Suddenly, he's throw into the air, gasping for air, gasping for life, his hands holding on to crimson metal as a victorious. imperial roar echoed across the expanse, beating the thunder and the lightning-crackle, the rushing waves and the hissing wind into submission.

Red rears her head, flashing gold eyes to the heavens, as she opens her jaws and roars once more, as she rises from the sea - the waters seeping down, the waves rushing _away_ from shore, the thunderclouds rolling into the horizon.

His only eye makes out her form, growing brighter by the second, the ringing in his ears punctuated by the beating of his goddamn heart - alive, _alive, ALIVE -_ and he holds on to the metal coating of Red's nape, as light fractures the darkness in the horizon.

Small - like a pinprick, a mere drop in an ocean, yet expanding, growing brighter and bigger like an awakening—

First bright red, then gold, and orange—

The sky turns from black, to purple, to rose red—

And there's whirl, a crack in the air like someone had hit a hammer against glass, and Keith breathes out hope as something mechanical speeds towards them, hurtling, to their direction—

Like sunlight creasing through the clouds, a large flying ship materialized out of air, light glinting off the gold of its coating, like a heavenly vanguard, an oasis in a desert, the safety and surety in a tempestuous ocean, an ark in a flood—

The Deucalion.

And Red roars, mighty and unstoppable and four others respond - blue and green and yellow and _black—_

Suddenly, Red is lowering herself down and easing him off her back with her other paw. She manages to stand on two only, just enough for him to put his feet on the ground and remember how to stand, just as the other Lions settled on the shore, the Deucalion gliding above, her ramparts like golden gates, like a harbinger of hope—

And the Black's jaws open and he can only blink, only mouth a name before Shiro is hurtling down to the shore, landing on a knee and running towards him. His vision is still flaked out, his hearing shot and he'll probably say goodbye to any shouting matches with Lance for the next few months, but fuck him if he doesn't feel like the _luckiest_ man in the world—

His knees tremble, and in fairness to them, they've managed to keep him holding up, for the times he need most—

And they buckle just as Shiro's arms catch him and pull him close, never letting him fall.

Never letting him go.

His eye closes as his vision pans out to white, pressing his nose against Shiro's neck, to the scent of cedar and sandalwood, feels the arms around him grow tight as he digs his nose deeper.

"I got you, alright?" Shiro's saying, words low and hoarse, and Keith's too far gone to confirm if the press of skin against his cheek were Shiro's lips or his fingers...or both. "I got you, Keith. I'm not letting go. I promise."

It's a promise he knows Shiro will keep.

* * *

When Keith comes to, it's to the sight of a white ceiling. It takes him a moment to wonder - if he's dreaming or if he's dead, if his memory of recent events served him right. Time seems to stand still, as he allows himself to look around, at the small circular windows — closed — and to the low lamp by the side of the table. There's not much to the room, save for the bed and the desk across the room, and when he looks around, he sees an IV line attached to his wrist, up to a bag hanging overhead, clear liquid inside.

Unsure of what's happening, he tenses, trying to sit up—

"Hey," he turns his head and relaxes immediately, Shiro entering the room and closing the door behind him. He's not in his uniform, just in a black shirt and his jeans, exhaustion across his features, but lighting up at the sight of Keith. "Welcome back."

Keith pauses, content to stare at him until he finds it in him to speak. He opens his mouth, lips angling for words before Shiro pulls a stool close to his side and sits on it. "Try not to talk too much. You're severely dehydrated, your sugar levels low and your throat's a bit damaged. Luckily, there's no infection so the doc prescribed bed rest and water for now. We got a dextrose on for you."

He nods, taking in Shiro's words - knows that Shiro will never be dishonest with him. He relaxes back into the pillow, before he raises his free hand, making a biting motion with it—

Shiro smiles, tightlipped, just for him and Keith's hand closes into a fist, trembling slightly. "Red's in the hangar. The Deucalion's mechanics are taking a look at her and estimating what needs to be repaired. Safe to say, her core wasn't damaged, but her battery levels were really low. Minimizing the impact during the crash with her boosters took a lot out of her."

His throat is sand and glass as he nods, can't find the words to even think of how _grateful_ , how fucking lucky he is to have a Lion like her, to keep him safe and—

A hand threads against his, fingers interlocked. Keith's breath hitches as he looks up at Shiro.

Beneath the smile, Keith finally sees the worry and the terror, the fear inked into Shiro's skin, the dulled out hollow beneath his eyes and the deepened frown lines. The smile, though, eased all that as Keith squeezed their locked hands.

"Seeing you—" Shiro started, voice thin and reedy. Like it's all he could do to keep it together. To keep it from breaking. "Seeing you hurtling away was too much for me. It was too painful—"

 _Shiro,_ he mouths the name as Shiro bites his life and the gleam in those brown eyes turn liquid. "When you stepped in front of that cannon beam, I've never been more terrified in my entire life."

Worth it, he wants to say. It was worth the price. If it meant keeping Shiro safe. If it meant finally upholding a promise he made to himself, a promise that he's failed over and over. If it meant that Shiro keeps to keep on standing, he'll gladly do it over and over and over.

But he doesn't, because it's not what Shiro needs to hear—and Keith is slowly, very slowly, coming to terms with the realization that whatever this was between them wasn't anything ephemeral. It was all-consuming, expansive - but it burned hot and bright and powerfully.

He slowly untangled his fingers from Shiro's grasp and raised them, pressed his thumb against Shiro's cheek - warm, breathing, alive - and his lip trembles as Shiro closes his eyes in relief and presses his face into Keith's open palm, like it's a balm for the pain, the warmth in a tumult of a storm, a respite in a battlefield—

Shiro turns his head in and presses a kiss against the inside of Keith's wrist.

His eyes open, and the liquid in them threatened to fall as a bright, hopeful, too-soft, too-gentle smile appeared, voice low, warm and kind as he presses his cheek once more to Keith's hand and whispers—

"I love you so much. More than anything."

And when the words sink in, when the honesty — riveting, relentless and rushing — burns its mark into his brain and across his heart and all over his body, Keith doesn't expect the _lightness_ he feels, as if every weight on his shoulder had disappeared. As if each moment that carried him forward, from then to here and now, was suddenly worth it. As if every second had him hurtling towards this very moment.

He expects the insecurity to rear at him, the anxiety to plague his thoughts — fog-like notions of self-worth poisoning the fragile veins of his feelings for this beautiful, bright man — but he feels nothing of that sort. What he feels is the molten unfurling of fire in his chest, like an aria bursting at the seams. What he feels is the tell-tale warmth of Shiro's skin against his, echoed beneath a starry sky — across a flame-lit room and the press of his nose against Keith's neck — and it's not new, not unique. It's familiar, it's warm, it's safe.

Home. That's what he feels.

And it doesn't take him even a second to realize that he's long fell in love with Shiro Takashi.

 _I love you, too._ He mouths, smiling, giggling if he could because Shiro is smiling back, just as brightly, a supernova discernable from across half the universe. A star that outshined each one across the sky. Leave it to Keith to gamble his heart and fall in love with the personification of every constellation in the universe, the brightest lantern that guided his way home.

It's the easiest choice he's had to make all his life.

Keith's fingers spread across Shiro's cheek, his thumb wiping away the fallen tear beneath an eye before his fingers wrap around his neck and pulls him close. Shiro - his own binary star, a part of him that Keith can never untangle from himself - reaches forward and close, his own hands, gentle and soft—

On both his cheeks, cradling him like something important—

His lips—

on Keith's—

It's every single thing he was stupid and brave and daring enough to hope for, to dream of, to outline in his imagination —and he never should have; it's like he made this moment possible by dignifying it with the contents of his thoughts, and this wasn't—

Shiro's mouth fits against his so fucking perfectly that it should be a crime—it is, actually; it's fucking criminal, and they should lock him up for what he's doing with his tongue—

And the thing is—

Shiro tastes exactly like home.

 _Stay with me?_ He mouths, slowly, as Shiro leans back (just a bit, a very, very _tiny_ bit), the euphoric expression on his face like the golden glimmer of a true sun rising across the horizon. His hands are still on Keith's face, still so gentle and soft, and if Shiro continues on like this, he's not responsible if his body starts melting into the ground like molten gold—

"Forever?" Shiro asks, and on someone else, it might be teasing, might be a flirt, a joke. Keith blinks rapidly, the sting in his eyes distinct, his vision blurring as honesty continues to shine in Shiro's eyes.

He nods once, twice and manages to do half of a third before Shiro kisses him again. And again. And again.

"Forever, then."

 **FIN**


End file.
